summertime hello.

A few fun things from around the web!

1. What it costs to eat at every 3-star Michelin restaurant in the world.

2. Genius Picnic Bag on my wish list. 

3. Consider this yet another reason I dream of being gal pals with Kristen Wiig. 

4. Can't wait to visit the giants in Mariposa Grove with my parents this weekend!

5. Grown men reenact conversations with a toddler. 

6. Rent in SF is actually the worst. 

7. Lowland Hum plays at the Garage. Their album Native Air will be available two weeks from today. I already have it and man is it good.

8. I will be playing on this beach in Costa Rica with my handsome husband love in just 2 weeks! 

Hope everyone is having a full and happy summer : )

. . .

snow wall.

Lake Tahoe snow is no joke.

This is my middling attempt at a blog post for the week. Fifty words and a photo of me pointing at (an undeniably impressive) wall of snow. It can only get better from here folks. Thanks for hanging in there.

love, beth

. . .

jan 1.

After a 12 day whirlwind of travel, we are back home in our apartment for the first time tonight. We spent a happiest Christmas in North Carolina and New Year's on incredible Lake Tahoe. As 2013 begins, I'm acutely aware of how rich I am. I feel so much thankfulness for the extravagant goodness in my life.

. . .

lake tahoe: 3/3

Aside from our drive around the lake, an evening at the movies (seeing Wreck-It Ralph), and a fancy dinner date, not much was planned or scheduled for our time away. We tried to see the sunset every night and other than that, our days were wide open for time on the porch and hanging out by the fire. We spent time talking about all that's come to be since our last anniversary (quite a lot we realized) and wondering what might change by next year. Life with Finn is an unknowable adventure. I love it. I look forward to our anniversary trips down the line and all the changes and refinement that will happen in the years between them.

Sidenotes:

1. Sadly we did not see a bear, though I certainly tried.

2. Is that pinecone impressive or what?

3. The house we stayed in was amazing. A friend of TwitSpark lent us his vacation home for the weekend and it was ballin, for lack of better words. Leather sofas, a huge bathtub, a TV (!!!), and a king sized bed! Their living room and kitchen were easily bigger than our whole apartment. If this house hadn't been lent to us, our trip to Tahoe probably wouldn't have happened so we are very thankful. I hereby declare that if we ever have a vacation home, we will lend it to young couples to pay it forward. 

. . .

lake tahoe: 2/3

We spent one of our days driving the entire way around Lake Tahoe, which takes about 3 hours. My most favorite of all our various stops was the beautiful Emerald Bay. It's known for its vibrant colors and it has the only island in all of Lake Tahoe, in case you were wondering.

We had lunch high above the bay on some sunny boulders and although we just had bread, jam, and BBQ chips, I felt like a king! What a view. After lunch, we hiked down a windy trail to the edge of the water so we could see its "emerald" color up close. I think we stayed down there for an hour and a half, just looking around. It's of the most naturally beautiful places I've ever been. 

Several people warned us about the steep hike back up the trail but it turns out that San Francisco hills have basically made American Gladiators out of our lungs and we strolled up casually and actually had a conversation the whole way up. We felt very proud of ourselves at the top - the grueling SF landscape has apparently paid off.

. . .

lake tahoe: 1/3

Our anniversary trip in Lake Tahoe was the best. We spent 3 nights away in an area called Incline Village on the northeast side of the lake. It was our first California excursion since living here and spending a few days out the city was refreshing and fun. I love nature and miss its presence in our city life. Getting away for weekend trips is more of a challenge since we don't have a car and our generous friend Jeff was kind enough to lend us his for the whole weekend. Thank you Jeff! Our time away was filled with relaxing by the fire, watching sunsets, playing frisbee, napping (that one was mainly me), and generally enjoying the incredible natural beauty by being outside. The whole weekend felt like one giant exhale and I'm so thankful we were able to visit, especially at such a beautiful time of year.

There was a also a very nice frisbee golf course (what providence!) half a mile from our house so we played a few times over the weekend. I wish I could say I totally smoked my competition, but that would be a bold lie.

It turns out my frisbee skills have diminished over the past few years. This kept happening....dang bushes.

On one hole, I temporarily got my act together and we tied. Our reactions are pretty telling.

More photos coming soon!

. . .

back from tahoe.

We are back from Lake Tahoe and man oh man, was it an amazing time. 

It is seriously such a beautiful place. We were not at all ready to leave and the drive back yesterday was full of wistful sighs for the scenery and trees. I loved it all! Our time away was restful and fun, just as we'd hoped it would be. I'll definitely share more photos over the next few days. I hope everyone had a good weekend!

. . .

the anniversary trip.

We're going away to Lake Tahoe this weekend to celebrate our second anniversary. I can't wait! When we got married, we decided that we'd try to take a trip every year for our anniversary, even if it's little.

For last year's anniversary, we biked the Virginia Creeper Trail in Damascus, Virginia. It's one of our favorite trips we've ever taken. We stayed in an old bed and breakfast on the river and had the best time biking down the trail. It's 34 miles long and slightly downhill the whole way. We stopped at different pastures and bridges to explore and ate hotdogs for lunch at a stand along the way. Although the changing leaves make October the most popular month to go, the trail didn't feel too overcrowded. It was all cinematically beautiful. We had such a nice time.

And as real life often goes, there are some funny mishaps to share too:

1) We went to see a play on our non-biking day and it was terrible. 

2) On day 2 I went down the creaky stairs to the kitchen in the middle of the night and there was a man in there. In the dark. That's like a female-imagination-worst-nightmare come true. Turns out it was the owner's hooligan grandson who stops in to take food. Still, it scared me so bad.

3) When we took the shuttle to the top of the mountain to bike, I decided we should sit in the back of the van because "it would be more swervy and fun". I then got super carsick and almost threw up. When we finally got out of the van, I had to lay in the grass for half an hour before we could start biking. Finn loves this story.

I'm really looking forward to this year's trip. Neither of us have been to Lake Tahoe and don't know what to expect. It will all be a surprise! I'm mainly excited to spend a whole weekend with Finn, ride in a car, eat s'mores, and see lots of trees. Everything else will be extra goodness.

. . .

P.S. - This was during my Katniss stage, which explains the second picture down.

a sunday drive.

We rented a zipcar for 3 hours yesterday in the late afternoon for a much needed trip out of the city. We live in the middle of downtown and sometimes (typically after a few consecutive weeks of not leaving our area code) I am overwhelmed with a need to see some nature. I reached my breaking point yesterday so a drive to the coast was in order. We headed north on highway 1 with the windows down and talked the whole time. We saw and smelled the ocean and trees, all while the sun was going down. Even though the glare kind of gave me a bad headache, I was so happy. It reminds me of all John Muir said about nature. That guy was smart.

. . .

holland drive.

We loved our apartment in Chapel Hill. It was a great place for us - quiet, tucked away in a patch of forest, and close in proximity to both friends and a great big pasture. Our back porch overlooked some woods, which were especially magnificent around this time last year. That apartment has been on our minds a good bit this week, but for reasons back-porch-view unrelated. 

Our recent nostalgia has been brought on by the unfortunate paring of this week's weather (blazing hot) and our 100 year-old building's AC situation, which is that there's no AC. So I truly do miss the porch and trees, but sometimes I just miss my old friends, dishwasher and central cooling. Those guys were the best. 

. . .

a sailing date.

We went sailing on the bay over the weekend and had a wonderful time. The excursion was a genius birthday gift from Caroline back in April and we've been saving it all these months. The next few weeks will be busy ones, so we decided to finally pull the trigger and schedule the sail, which was great fun! Our vessel was a 41 foot mono-hull sailboat (according to Finn) and we sailed around the bay for an hour and a half while the sun went down. The boat was small enough that a strong gust of wind would really lean us to the side, which made us slide around and laugh. My favorite detail was the experience of seeing the colors progress in the sky and how they changed the look of the water little by little. The whole evening was a treat.

It was a truly great date. One of our best, I'd say. Once we scheduled our sail, we decided to make a whole night of it and tacked on several other fun activities to the already awesome sailing. We played arcade games at Musée Mécanique beforehand, ate donuts from Trish's, watched the sea lions, stopped for sushi on the walk back, and watched a movie at home. If there were a competition for good dates, this one would certainly medal. Thank you Caroline for knowing me well and giving a great gift. We loved it.

Better documentation to come in the next week...

(Our excursion was with San Francisco Sailing Company. If you go, take gloves!) 

. . .

lands end.

This past weekend marked our first visit to Lands End, a national park site that's located in the northwestern corner of San Francisco. It's this huge conservancy area with miles of hiking trails, many of which lie right at the continent's edge. It was cold and beautiful. The views were the kind that actually make your mouth drop. This area of California has such gorgeous and diverse nature lands, I am loving it. 

(other posts about beautiful nature lands near us)

Marin Headlands & Muir Woods, Napa / Wine Country, Highway 1, Golden Gate Park

. . .

the loggerhead birthday.

A portion of my time in North Carolina was spent at the beach in Oak Island with several of my most favorite family members. Right in front of our little beachfront bungalow happened to be a loggerhead sea turtle nest that, according to the nest volunteers, was due to hatch any day. We were all hopeful and checked on the nest frequently throughout the week trying to will something to happen. My mom was undoubtedly the most fervent in her nest devotion and spent several hours each night in her little beach chair on watch. She befriended the volunteers and even gave them her phone number, insisting that they call her if any signs of hatching showed.

Around 10:30 pm our last night there, her phone buzzed with a text: "we have a depression". We were immediately taken over by excitement, waking the sleeping members of the house and hurrying out into the night. Sure enough, there were two small divots in the sand that were new. The waiting began.

Over the course of an hour and a half, the two depressions slowly deepened, eventually merging together, and finally expanding into a circular sunken area about 10 inches wide. Our whole viewing experience was at the mercy of a single volunteer who alone held the power of the turtle-approved red flashlight (no other lights were allowed). At one point, distracted by spectator questions, she had the light off for about a minute. The next time she clicked her flashlight on, it was happening. In the cutest frenzy ever, the little turtles were emerging from the sand by the dozens and the lot of us erupted in a chorus of squeals and gasps. 

photo sourced from web. we couldn't take any photos but hopefully this gives you an idea of the cuteness level we were dealing with.

We all watched in wonder as more than 100 teeny turtle babies scooted to the sea. I think the setting of night made it even more mysterious and exciting. It was a unique human experience to quietly wait alongside 50+ strangers in the dark, all sharing a curiosity and care for some teeny marine reptiles. I'm so thankful they made their debut while we were still there. The memory of the first one disappearing into the water and the sight of their little track marks in the sand are things I'll never forget. I wanted to hold one so bad but, alas, "knowing better" is the plight of adulthood responsibility. 

This is the only photo I have from the night & was taken after they were all in the ocean. My expression is a good indication of how I felt internally the entire time - it was amazing. This earth is full of wonders. 

I love nature and I love those little babies.

. . .

sliding rock.

I wish I were going to be in NC longer, I'd love to visit sliding rock this time of year. I have great memories of that place. We went as kids and though the water at the bottom is freezing cold, it's always so fun and invigorating. If you live in NC and haven't gone, you should! It's in Pisgah National Forest and also isn't too far from Greenville, SC. I think it'd make such a fun and unique birthday party location. Also, I wonder who was the very first person to ride down its slippery rock face and whether or not it was intentional...

(photo sourced from pinterest)

. . .

my people depart.

Our place has felt a bit empty since our friends left. The apartment was at full capacity last week in the best way possible and I miss their pallets on the floor and the extra toothbrushes in the bathroom. It felt like summer camp being all together and, much like Sarah's time here, the week flew by. It meant a lot for them to make the trip out - it's expensive and a long way to come and I'm so thankful they did. Love you friends.

Here's the all-star lineup if you don't know these people very well:

       1. Lauren/LaViss: triathalon-doing, outside-enthusiast, med-school student, early riser, and runs as fast as boys (really). Grew up with brothers and knows a lot about Pokemon as a result. We met the very first week of college & email each other pictures of baby animals frequently. 

       2. Caroline/Liney/Miami: Spanish-speaking, travel-loving, witty-as-they-come, genetic night owl with an affinity for international food and humongous dogs. Also keeper of many hilarious stories as the most ridiculous things happen to her. Has a large crush on South African comedian Trevor Noah.

       3. Nick/Nicky D/Tron/DaBrat: awesome story teller, law-school bound, loud-laugher, and a surprisingly huge fan of "So You Think You Can Dance?". Falls asleep within the first 15 minutes of all movies, talks in his sleep, and is incredibly nice and positive. Nobody dislikes Nick.

       4. Me: I have never received a nickname and yes I'm bitter. 

Here are a few pictures of our time together: 

Outside of Musee Mecanique. Nick and Caroline messing up the photo op.

Finn scored us tickets to a Giants game. The stadium is beautiful!

Nick and Lauren enjoying the cable car ride. Nick befriended the brakeman and even asked where he lived. 

Lauren matching a mural in the Mission.

4th of July in Golden Gate Park.

Maybe my favorite excursion of their time here: we rented a car for the day & drove to Muir Woods, Marin Headlands, and up the coastal Highway 1. It was so beautiful and we had windows down & Paul Simon playing. I had fun driving on the winding roads & we pulled over several times for the views. 

"Do something interesting with the fence!"

I pulled over and these 3 all instinctively ran down the hill to the cliff's edge with no discussion. I love this shot.

Awesome shot by Nick. Lauren is in the corner.

Not pictured: breakfast for dinner & chocolate chip/peanut butter chip/banana pancakes, our evening at a real life speakeasy, playing with dogs in Dolores Park, a chipmunk eating out of Nick's hand, fireworks at Ghiradelli Square, the farmer's market, a traveling circus show, and me doing this after they all left.

. . .